


lingering

by emily_420



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M, mentions of other yosen characters but it's hardly significant, murasakibara's family you better believe it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-11
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2018-01-15 08:56:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1299046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emily_420/pseuds/emily_420
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An utterly redundant recount of a year's worth of texting. (And maybe someone evolves into a Boyfriend-kun.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	lingering

**Author's Note:**

> a sort-of sequel to [in passing](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1155909) (reading that isn't entirely necessary tbh)
> 
> 16/04: minor verb/tense edits

He’d given Kiyoshi his phone number, sure, but that didn’t quite mean that Atsushi had really expected anything past a brownie recipe. Incidentally, he _did_ make the brownies, and he’d considered hoarding them all to himself, but it was one of those things that were so good that you wanted other people to know about it. Araki was pissed off a lot when she arrived at practice to find her team stuffing their faces, but Atsushi coaxed her into eating one – with a little sweet-talk from Liu and a smile from Muro-chin – and she didn’t say anything more about it.

After, when he was changed and on his way back to the school dorms, he sent Kiyoshi a message saying, _your granny’s brownies saved us from the shinai of retribution._ ‘Course, he’d wanted to know what _that_ was about, and they ended up texting each other at length about the quirks of their coaches.

Atsushi was kind of surprised at how easy it was to talk to Kiyoshi, even if it was over text. He set a light tone, asked the right questions, and, unlike a lot of people Atsushi knew, refrained from making fun of him at all. That was kind of nice. Atsushi’s classmates had an unfortunate tendency of assuming that he was only good at playing basketball and eating; on more than one occasion, he’d been spoken to as if he were a young child, which he did not appreciate in the slightest. He supposed that he could answer questions in class... but that would involve raising his hand, and then he’d probably get stared at, and really he was more comfortable with the knowledge that he was better than most of them at physics, anyway.

Anyway, they somehow manage to keep up a mostly-constant flow of chit-chat which Atsushi would never have anticipated and quite enjoyed. Kiyoshi, for reasons unknown, sent really terrible jokes to him every now and then, and it would have been annoying if he wasn’t a _sucker_ for lame jokes. As it were, though, he laughs at all of them, even in situations where he shouldn’t really have been laughing. The first time he got one, he’d been in class; his phone vibrated in his pocket and, casting a look up his teacher, who was facing the board, he opened the message under the desk and almost immediately started shaking with the effort of trying not to laugh.

Across the aisle from him, Muro-chin looked up from his notes, a little startled, asked, “Atsushi, what’s wrong?”

He clamped a hand over his mouth, shaking his head vigorously, but then the joke popped back into his head and he was shaking harder than ever.

“Are you feeling alright?” Muro-chin asked quietly, voice dripping with concern. Atsushi’s stomach hurt; he took several short breaths through his nose, trying to settle himself. Their teacher was facing the class again, and asked him if he needed to go to the nurse.

 _You shouldn’t send that kind of thing while I’m in class,_ he complained to Kiyoshi later. _Why not?_ he asked, and Atsushi said, _I think everyone in my class thought I was gonna throw up._ Which lead to the inevitable, _you thought that was funny?_ – and Kiyoshi explained that one of his friends told jokes like that all the time, but most people just wanted to hit him.

 _I like stuff like that,_ Atsushi typed, feeling a little wounded, _it’s clever._

 _Well then, I’ll remember them for you,_ Kiyoshi sent back, and Atsushi could practically see his smiling face.

Feeling a little touched, Atsushi sent back, _thanks, I guess._

.

K: is it true that you like nerunerunerune?

M: where did you hear that?

K: kuroko. he says it’s a life-changing experience to watch someone with huge hands eat with the tiny plastic spoon

K: they’re buying me some rn

M: it’s good, you know. get the grape flavour

K: grape flavour get! stay tuned

.

K: it was good, but it’s kind of hard to enjoy something when your friends are laughing and taking pictures

.

It should probably be surprising that he manages to keep in better contact with someone he barely knows than his friends from middle school, but that’s the way it goes for Atsushi. As it were, Aka-chin isn’t very social, only calling now and then to check up on things or order him around. Kuro-chin is as distant as he is in person, so it’s really to be expected. As for Sa-chin and Mine-chin and Kise-chin... he guesses that they were never quite close enough for that anyway. Mido-chin? Atsushi would laugh at you if you asked. _That_ guy doesn’t even keep up with people he _likes,_ why the hell would he bother with Atsushi?

Although, after a while, the fact that they’ve only really met a few times sort of fades into the background, because when you talk to someone almost every day, even if it’s only through text, you sort of get to know them pretty well. Kiyoshi’s kind and thoughtful and sort of devious; Atsushi tries, at first, but he just can’t find him annoying. He _does_ get annoyed, though, hearing about the surgery and rehabilitation he’d been going through. _You’d have to be stupid,_ Atsushi thought, _to do something like that to yourself just because you like playing basketball._ In the face of Kiyoshi’s radiant positivity though, the most he can manage to send is, _you’re such an idiot,_ and even then he was sure that it came off as fond.

Well, whatever. Kiyoshi can think what he likes.

.

The rest of the year passes maybe just a little bit sweeter than before. Well, maybe Fukui yells at him a little more for being on his phone all the time, and maybe Liu is spreading rumours that he has a secret girlfriend, but Atsushi’s steps feel a little lighter.

Winter swings around, as it always does, relieving them of the blistering heat of summer. (It was hotter every year, and he complained about it at length to Kiyoshi on a particularly nasty day in July that reached 43°C. _ahahaha, it’s only 28 in Tokyo,_ Kiyoshi sent back, and Atsushi contemplated throwing his phone at the wall. In the end he deemed that a stupid move and a waste of money and settled for giving Kiyoshi the cold (ha ha) shoulder for a few days.)

Winter brought its own set of problems, though – namely shopping. Atsushi hated shopping for clothes. Almost every time he walked into a shop, the attendants looked nervous, as if reluctant to tell him that they probably can’t help him with much. One of his mittens had a hole in it though, and dammit, he _liked_ wearing mittens. He was actually prepared to keep on with them regardless, but his big sister told him that since they were knitted, and the wool had snapped, they’d only unravel over time.

So he reluctantly drags himself through town trying to hunt down mittens that fit him and don’t look like something his math teacher would wear. He fails; everything’s either too small or an awful shade of green. _Why green, anyway?_ He thinks savagely to himself as he walks back to the dorms. _What tells manufacturers that men like gross shades of green? What’s with that?_

His phone, right next to his hand in the recesses of his jacket’s pockets, started ringing, and he was all set to just ignore it because he was feeling incredibly fed up with everything. It was Kiyoshi, though, so Atsushi figured he could whine a bit. Actually, most people would call what he was doing raging – minor details, though. Usually Kiyoshi just lets him get it out and then distracts him with small talk, but he agrees emphatically, and Atsushi remembers him grabbing a basketball with one hand, and it makes sense.

.

K: kuroko says you’re good at physics?

M: i’m not helping you study, you’re a year ahead of me anyway.

M: kuro-chin should keep his mouth shut. do me a favour and ruffle his hair really hard for me

K: he didn’t seem to mind until i said it was from you, then he looked really pissed

M: good

K: ...not even a little?

M: you’re a _year_ ahead of me

.

For Christmas, Atsushi goes back to Tokyo to stay with his family. Some of his classmates complain that Japan shouldn’t be celebrating such a western thing in the first place, but Atsushi likes Christmas, even if he isn’t Christian. His family was never terribly traditional, anyway.

Their mother is on the warpath because his eldest brother (Noboru, 20) was held up with work and couldn’t come until two days past when she’d expected him.

“I can’t just blow it off,” he’d told her (relayed to them as she marched around the kitchen, half-forgetting what she was doing), “I’m only a part-time employee and I don’t want to risk it.”

Even though she understood, their mother was _pissed_ , because she was very adamant about her kids coming to visit. Second-oldest brother, Satoshi, eighteen, had asked for time off way back when their mum had declared the official dates of their family Christmas, so he was clean, washing up the dirty dinner dishes like a respectable son, no doubt internally laughing his head off at the prospect of Noboru being chewed out when he finally gets back.

Third-oldest brother, Souta, seventeen, was fine anyway, because he was still going to high school in Tokyo. Him and only-sister, Chikako, were fraternal twins and, unlike Atsushi, hadn’t wanted to leave Tokyo for high school. He only did it for basketball, in the first place so it makes sense that they’d stay.

He’d told Kiyoshi that he was going to be in Tokyo for a while because he felt like he’d want to know something like that, and Kiyoshi said he’d drop by sometime. Atsushi didn’t know when _sometime_ was, so he was decidedly not worrying about it.  

So when his mother sent him and Chikako out shopping mid-morning on Christmas Eve – with a list and a particularly set amount of money (she had seven mouths to feed, here) – Atsushi didn’t expect to find Kiyoshi on his doorstep.

“Oh, hi,” Atsushi says shortly, mildly stunned.

“Friend’a yours?” Chikako asked.

“Mmm, yeah, sort of,” Atsushi says without looking at her. There’s snow in Kiyoshi’s hair, and his nose is as pink as his scarf from the cold, and he’s wearing a sort of breathless smile. Atsushi almost hates to think so, but he looks sort of... inviting.

Chikako clucks her tongue, says, “Well, ‘e can just come with us. If we don’t get this done real quick ma’ll be bakin’ _us_ for Chrissy dinner.”

That snapped Atsushi out of whatever daze he’s been in. “Uh, she has a point, actually.”

Chikako takes that as all the agreement she needs and starts dragging him along by the wrist. Atsushi is smarter than to complain, because she inherited their mum’s Scary Gene and she knows how to use it. Kiyoshi just smiles enigmatically and tags along.

It starts snowing again just as they’re almost at the supermarket, and once inside, Atsushi can’t quite help himself from brushing the snow from Kiyoshi’s hair.

“Snow,” he said, when Kiyoshi looked up at him.

“Ah, thanks,” Kiyoshi said, reaching up to Atsushi’s head, smiling, and brushes the snow out of his purple mess (it occurs to him only then that he hadn’t brushed his hair that morning). Kiyoshi’s hand lingers for maybe a split-second longer than was necessary, and Chikako clears her throat.

Atsushi looks over at her; she’s giving the pair of them an unreadable look. She blinks her wide purple eyes, though, and then she merely looks impatient.

“C’mon, lovebirds, we’re on a mission here.”

“Ahaha, right you are, boss,” Kiyoshi says, and they follow after her, but Atsushi’s got ‘lovebirds’ ringing through his head.

.

The Murasakibara home is awash with the sound of Noburu apologising and trying to make amends when they get back. Predictably, their mother is putting up a cold front; but they all know that if you give her a few solid minutes of acting really really regretful, she’ll melt into a tired, “It’s fine, really.”

Their dad’s engrossed in a book where he’s re-integrated himself with the kotatsu – there’s a running joke that if he hadn’t married their mother, he probably would have fallen for the kotatsu. Probably.

“What’cha readin’, pops?” Chikako asks, digging herself a spot across from him.

“One of Noboru’s,” he says absently. “He said it was good. So far, he’s not wrong.”

“I’m gonna make cocoa,” Atsushi announced to the room at large.

“Ooh, yeah,” Chikako says immediately. Their dad throws a finger in the air as a general indication that he’d like some.

“You want some?” Atsushi asks Kiyoshi, who looks like he was trying not to feel out of place.

“Atsushi’s cocoa is the best,” Chikako says dreamily. “He gave me the recipe, but I can’t get it to taste quite the same.”

“You probably get impatient, sis,” Atsushi says, because it’s true – she’d do something like use the microwave because it’s easier or not bother working out all the lumps or adding the milk all at once.  

“Alright then,” Kiyoshi says, looking like an interesting mix of curious and excited, and his voice roused their dad out of his book, realising for the first time that there was a stranger in the house.

“Son,” he said, eyes moving over Kiyoshi slowly, “who’s this?”

Atsushi shrugged. “A friend.”

“Hmm,” he hums, then turns back to his book. “Nice to meet you, Friend-kun.”

Kiyoshi smothers a laugh, says, “Actually, it’s Kiyoshi.”

Atsushi’s father hums again, says, “What’s your first name?”

“Teppei.”

“Teppei... I like that better, Teppei-kun.” He licks his thumb and slowly flicks the page over. “...Can I call you Teppei-kun?” he asks belatedly.

“I don’t mind,” Kiyoshi says, and Atsushi’s feet are freezing, so he heads over to the kitchen, figuring that the faster he makes cocoa, the faster he’ll be under the kotatsu.

“Who reorganised, anyway?” he whines, loud enough that they can hear him in the living room.

“That idiot I share a birthday with!” Chikako calls back.

“Souta would,” Atsushi grumbles under his breath. Everything was in the wrong place, ugh, it was like playing hide-and-seek in the kitchen he’d been cooking in for his whole life. He had refrained from saying anything, because he hadn’t been cooking since he’d been home, but _really._

“Ah~, that moron~,” Atsushi  says under his breath, opening a couple of different cupboards until he finds the pots and pans. “Doesn’t he know that mothers and kitchens should always stay the same?”

He starts making cocoa once everything was unearthed from their hiding places. It feels pretty good to be cooking something after quite a while, even if it’s something easy, like cocoa, and Atsushi was preoccupied enough that he didn’t really notice that Kiyoshi was watching him with a vague smile on his face.

“Your family seems nice,” Kiyoshi says as Atsushi pours the cocoa into some mugs.

Atsushi shrugs. “I s’pose.” Last mug down and he’s getting the whipped cream from the fridge. “We’ve always gotten along, I guess.”

“Are you the youngest?”

“Mmm. Noboru, then Satoshi, then Chikako and Souta, then me. Can you help me with these?”

“Oh, sure,” Kiyoshi agrees, and they grab two mugs each.

Atsushi pauses in the doorway. “They joked about calling me Gorou. Y’know, fifth.”

Kiyoshi laughs like he wasn’t expecting to, says, “I suppose you’d never forget.”

They sit under the kotatsu, and Chikako has pulled a hand-held video game out from Lord-knows-where. Things are pleasantly silent until Souta comes in, because nothing is very pleasant _or_ silent when Souta comes in. He halts at the sight of brown among all the purple.

“Sister dear, _don’t_ tell me you got a boyfriend and never _told_ me!” he exclaims, fake-gasping and putting his hand over his heart. Chikako reaches under the kotatsu, playing the game with one hand, and pulls out a manga tankouban, tossing it in the general direction of Souta’s face.

“Read that and keep your mouth shut,” she says.

“She’s been playing that game for two weeks,” Souta says to Atsushi, snuggling under the kotatsu next to his sister, on Atsushi’s side. “Doesn’t even get mad when she’s playing it. A miracle, really. The gods have really worked their magic here, little bro.”

Souta looks down at the manga in his hand and makes a face. “To-LOVE-Ru? _You’re_ reading _To-LOVE-Ru_?”

“Friend leant it to me, but I don’t like it much. Not sure ‘ow ta break it to ‘er,” Chikako says blankly, fingers working fast.

“Dang, Atsushi, her Japanese is even getting worse. I didn’t think that was even _possible_.”

“I’ll shave your eyebrows off in your sleep,” Chikako threatens, not sounding the least bit threatening.

“Yeah, but Boyfriend-kun, please tell me you’re not really a Boyfriend-kun. I don’t take to well to those,” Souta says, suddenly serious, looking over at Kiyoshi, who reappears from behind his mug with whipped cream on his nose.

“No, no,” he says lightly. “I’m just a regular Friend-kun.”

“Chikako’s?”

“Mine,” Atsushi says, and he doesn’t want to think about why that feels good.

“Oh,” Souta says, looking pleased. “Then, what brings you to our freezing-cold abode, Friend-kun? Can’t be because you heard about a beautiful purple-haired woman, ‘cause our mother has black hair and she’s so taken that Atsushi surely wouldn’t advertise her.”

Souta’s mistake, Atsushi thinks, was sitting next to Chikako. Or at least, that what his cry of pain when she elbows him in the stomach tells him.

“Behave,” their father says, without any real conviction.

“Yes,” the twins drone. Atsushi sort of missed being at home.

“I wanted to give Murasakibara his Christmas present,” Kiyoshi says.

“ _Presents?_ My, and we’ve only just met! Aren’t _you_ forward!” Souta says, preening and batting his eyelashes. Kiyoshi laughs pleasantly.

“No, no, I meant Atsushi,” Kiyoshi says, finally noticing the cream on his nose, wiping it off and using his tongue to flick it off his finger. Something in Atsushi’s stomach flip-flops at hearing Kiyoshi use his first name.

“Of course you did,” says Souta, deflating and sprawling across the table. “The good-looking ones _never_ go for me.”

Atsushi almost misses it, but he sees his father roll his eyes. At he gets up, he flicks his brother’s ear.

“Yeah, I got you something too...” he says. It was... kind of stupid, actually, because he’d bought it before he’d even known that they were going to see each other over Christmas. He’d been shopping, and he’d just thought, oh, Kiyoshi would like that.

Atsushi ducks (quite literally – he’s hit his head before and he doesn’t enjoy it) into his room and grabs Kiyoshi’s gift from the bag he’d brought from school. When he gets back, Kiyoshi is sitting at the kotatsu, practically bouncing up and down with anticipation, a neatly wrapped package sitting in front of him. He hands it over to him when Atsushi sits down, and Atsushi unwraps it with slow, methodical care. Sitting inside are a pair of knitted pink mittens.

“Mittens,” Atsushi says, looking up.

“Yeah,” Kiyoshi says, his smile threatening to break his face. “You said yours were ruined, so I made you some.”

“Dammit!” Souta wails. “Damn you, Atsushi! He’s perfect Boyfriend-kun material!”

Souta’s pretty much a puddle of loneliness on the kotatsu by this point.

“You’ll find someone some day, son,” their father says steadily. “It took me through sev – eight? Maybe nine women to meet your mother. No need to be hasty.”

It might have even been good advice if he didn’t sound dismissive and if he didn’t have his face almost entirely hidden by a book.

Ignoring his brother’s blight, Atsushi slips on the mittens, pleased with them and glad to see that they fit. He looks up at Kiyoshi, who’s sipping on cocoa, and says, “Thanks, Kiyoshi."

Kiyoshi smiles at him again –  Atsushi’s only vaguely aware that he’d becoming addicted to them –  says, “It’s alright. Do they fit okay? I figured that our hands were about the same size, allowing...”

“Yeah, they’re good,” Atsushi says, wiggling his fingers a bit. “Although, your hands might be a bit bigger. I’ve never been able to grab a basketball with one hand like that.”

Kiyoshi laughs to cover up his wince, but not before Atsushi sees it. _Oh, right,_ he thinks. _Don’t mention basketball, then._

Noboru walks into the room from somewhere behind Atsushi, and before he can defend himself, Noboru’s on his knees behind him, his arms around Atsushi's neck.

“Ah, my sweet baby brother!” he cries. “I’ve missed you so! ...Wait, are you all drinking Atsushi’s cocoa without me?”

“Ya snooze, ya loose,” Chikako pipes from behind her game, and then lets out a cry of despair. “Noboru, I hate you!” she wails, putting the game down.

“Ah, you don’t mean that,” Noboru says, grabbing Atsushi’s mug and drinking from it; Atsushi could hear him swallow behind his head and feels himself getting irritated.

“Oi,” Atsushi says lowly.

“Older brother’s privilege,” Noboru says in his uppity greater-than-you voice, setting the (now empty) mug back on the table. Noboru rises and ruffles Atsushi’s hair, saying, “But I suppose you wouldn’t know about that.”

So the scene is like this when Atsushi’s mother walks in: Noboru is laughing, Atsushi is pissed off, the twins are depressed, their father is reading without a care in the world, and some other boy is smiling and drinking cocoa.

“What on earth is going on in here?” she asks tiredly.

.

“I like your family,” Kiyoshi says on his way out. “They’re fun.”

“Too fun, sometimes,” Atsushi mutters.

“Come again, Teppei-kun,” his father drawls on his way past, being shepherded into the kitchen by his mother.

“Sure,” Kiyoshi says, smiling.

.

And he does. Next Christmas, Atsushi introduces him as Boyfriend-kun.

**Author's Note:**

> tbh i think i butchered murasakibara a bit oopsie forgive me mukkun
> 
> murakiyo got really important to me really quickly
> 
> just in case anyone's interested souta is camp gay yet panromantic (don't knock it 'till you try it, he says)
> 
> uh, just in case, the gorou thing? go = five. and he has four older siblings? i'm lame.


End file.
